As a self-confessed Americanophile (pretty sure that's not a word, but I couldn't find a Franco/Anglophile alternative...), I couldn't just sit in on '4th of July', and so I decided to try one of the options from my list. As it is a monthly event and, having never experienced the food truck phenomenon, I opted for Truck Stop London at Canary Wharf.
Although I've never been to a food truck site before, I think it's safe to say that the centre of London's financial district is a far cry from the concept's origins. However, the choice of Wood Wharf, a manmade island with a very green feel to it, actually worked pretty well and, if you can ignore all the city guys in suits, you could soon forget where you actually were.
We were some of the first people to arrive and, although that meant that we were the ones to face the few teething problems of the evening (we were feeling indecisive so asked for a description of every drink on offer at the bar until settling on wine and making the poor bar guy search everywhere for a corkscrew), it did also mean that we didn't have to queue for a single truck and didn't have to worry about anything running out.
Seeing as how I massively pigged out and had a carb overload, I won't go into great detail about what I had (vegetarian balls (lol) from The Bowler, mint and courgette arancini and Pimms lemonade from Cheeky Italian, classic mac'n'cheese from Anna-Mae's, and mango frozen yoghurt from The Little Mixing Station), but overall it was pretty good. I do feel like I failed as I had wanted to try out the star of the night, Mother Clucker, and the Taco Shack, but I very much overdid it early on and just had to give up (pretty sure I went into a food coma when I got home...).
Although it doesn't look too appetising, the veggie ball (with marinara sauce, rice, and sides of coleslaw and crispy onions) was really good but so much food! The arancini balls were great too (very minty!) but I did add red pepper sauce to them, which I think they definitely needed. As for the mac'n'cheese, it was definitely very popular (the queue was huge by about 7pm), and it did taste good, but for such a massive bowl, I once again had to add some sauce, this time of the hot variety. I think that this would have been amazing had I chosen a different version with toppings, but it wasn't the most veggie-friendly menu, so this was my only real option. If I ever cross paths with this food truck again though, I will be sure to ask if I can do a 'create your own'.
Desserts were a little bit disappointing, but as they're not really the star attraction of the event, I think this can be forgiven. Both the jelly and the fro yo were ok taste-wise, it was just the consistency that made it a bit difficult as the first was more like a puree and the other was a bit too lumpy, due to the mango bits.
All in all, it was a really fun event that I'm sure will only get better as time goes on and I would be really keen to visit again next month so that I can try the trucks I wasn't hardcore enough to get to!
No comments:
Post a Comment